


You still feel safe inside (Was this yesterday?)

by merle_p



Category: Brothers & Sisters
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-11-23
Updated: 2007-11-23
Packaged: 2017-10-06 18:01:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,364
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/56352
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/merle_p/pseuds/merle_p
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This is his life. This is his family.</p>
            </blockquote>





	You still feel safe inside (Was this yesterday?)

**Author's Note:**

> Written November 2007.  
> Spoilers for the whole first and some of the second season.  
> Not mine. Brothers &amp; Sisters belongs to ABC, the title is part of a Tanita Tikaram song.

_Well, there's a good tradition of love and hate staying by the fireside   
There's a good tradition of love and hate staying by the fireside _

And though the rain may fall - your father's calling you   
You still feel safe inside   
And though your ma's too proud - your brother's ignoring you   
You still feel safe inside

Oh, was this solo?   
Was this yesterday?   
Was this true for you?   
'Cos of all the choices you have made   
This didn't do a lot for you

(Tanita Tikaram, Good tradition)

***

Justin is two (and three quarters) when he falls down the stairs that lead to the entrance hall.

Kitty and Sarah are chasing each other across the first floor, laughing and squeaking along the corridor and then jumping down the stairs. Justin hurries to catch up and stumbles, not yet totally in control of his tiny legs. He doesn't really get injured, well protected by layers of baby fat, but he cries anyway, because it _hurts_ and because he doesn't understand why he's so small and the others are not.

Four siblings are on top of him in a split second, checking him out, soothing and hugging, and then move together to the living room to play with Tommy's and Kevin's action figures. Justin likes that, but the crying has exhausted him, and he finally falls asleep against the couch, while the others are still busy building a cave for Luke and Leia to hide in.

***

When Justin is four, he gets lost.

It's summer, and Dad has taken them to the beach, where his brothers and sisters are romping in the waves, splashing and spattering. Justin is not allowed to join them: he's too little and the ocean huge and dangerous.

A gull finally draws his attention away from his siblings, and when the bird starts hopping and flapping along the beach, Justin follows. But eventually, the gull takes to the skies, and when he turns around, his family is gone. He doesn't know where he is, and how to get back, so he sits down in the sand and waits, hoping that the others will look for him and not just forget about him and drive away.

He doesn't know how long he has been sitting there, but suddenly, Kevin is there, pale and breathless, and scoops him up, hugging him and dropping kisses on Justin's skin. Justin is so relieved that he starts crying, and Kevin carries him all the way back to where the others are waiting, upset and worried.

***

Until Justin is six, Sarah and Kitty keep dressing him up in Mum's clothes and painting his toenails.

They make delighted noises and hug him a lot and tell him that he's cute as a button. Tommy hates it when they do this. Kevin, for some reason, doesn't. Justin isn't sure what to make of all that, but he's usually glad when Mum comes to his rescue and helps him change into his own clothes, yelling at the girls for ruining her blouse.

He's also glad that somehow, they all seem to think that Dad doesn't have to know.

***

Sometime after Justin's tenth birthday, Tommy tells him to stay away from Kevin.

He knows that this has to do with the boy who sometimes comes over with Kevin after school now – but only when they know that Tommy won't be there. Danny is pretty, with soft-looking honey coloured hair, and always nice to Justin, unlike Tommy's friends from the football team.

Tommy should know that it's pointless to even try to keep one's distance as long as they are living practically on top of each other in this house, but Justin doesn't see a reason why he should, anyway. Kevin seems to be grateful for that, and for the first time, Justin gets the impression that his opinion really matters.

***

When Justin is twelve, he gets wasted with Tucker Booth in the tree house behind the ranch house in Ojai.

His parents don't let him touch even a glass of champagne, which is pretty ridiculous, considering the amount of alcohol that the rest of his family is downing on a daily basis.

It's nice to see that there is someone who thinks he's old enough for this.

It's Kitty, though, who's holding him later, while he vomits repeatedly into the bucket next to his bed. Dad grounds him for a week, Tommy is furious, swearing that he's going to beat the shit out of Tucker, and Sarah and Kevin share odd looks for the rest of their stay in Ojai.

***

Justin is sixteen when he has sex for the first time.

The girl is Charlotte Webster, who Sarah says is the nicest of his female classmates she has met. He compliments her on her intellect, because Kitty told him that women want to feel respected. He makes sure to kiss her breasts which Tommy said most girls are fond of. He uses one of the condoms that Kevin slipped into his pocket earlier that day.

It isn't even so bad.

But later, when Charlotte asks him over a cigarette to tell her about his family, Justin lies that he has somewhere to be, and he never goes out with her again.

***

Justin is eighteen, and he's fed up with the others still treating him like a child.

Tommy still tells him what to do, Kevin still comes to pick him up when he's in trouble, and he's sure that his sisters would still paint his nails if he let them.

So he starts doing the exact opposite of what Tommy says, he makes sure he gets into a lot of trouble, and he sleeps with girls whose fingernails are very long and painted black.

***

When Justin is twenty-one, his father tells him that he's proud of him.

Kitty, after asking three times if he's sure, tells him the same. It's enough to convince him that he's doing the right thing.

When Sarah tells him, plain and simple, that she thinks he's insane, and when Kevin doesn't say anything and just _looks_ at him for days, he hesitates.

But his mother's heartbroken look and her pleading, and Tommy's raised brow that tells him his brother still doesn't believe that he's got the courage, make him remember why he's doing this in the first place.

***

Justin is twenty-three, and been addicted for a while.

It's not as if he never smoked pot or something before he went away, but back then, he did it to get high – now he just wants to get away.

They ask him questions, but he can't answer them. Can't tell Sarah about the little girl he found smashed under the debris, can't tell Kitty about women who don't really care what kind of uniform their rapists wear, can't tell Kevin about the soldier who ate his gun after his fellows found out he liked guys.

Can't tell his mother that one night, he thought about doing the same.

***

When Justin is twenty-six, he finds out that he is not the baby in the family.

Has not been for twenty years. And this is maybe why he is so eager to integrate Rebecca, because for once, _he_ is the big brother. It's not a role he's learned, but it's one he embraces wholeheartedly.

And this has nothing to do with the fact that Rebecca is a pretty young woman who obviously adores him and who, under other circumstances, would be exactly his type.

***

When Justin is twenty-seven, his truck blows up in the middle of the desert.

His leg is wrecked, an angry blaze of pain, and he cannot move. He doesn't know where he is, and what to do, so he doesn't move at all, while his blood is seeping into the sand beneath him, and waits for Kevin to come and pick him up. He'll carry him over to where the rest of his family waits, and Tommy will ruffle his hair. Mum will make waffles for dinner, and Kitty will let him sleep in her bed.

The medic who finds him doesn't look anything like Kevin, but before he blacks out, Justin hopes that he'll bring him home anyway.


End file.
